Two exceptional PPS educators, Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones, were recently named OnPoint Educators of the Year for 2025.

As part of this prestigious honor, both teachers will have their rent or mortgage paid for an entire year, and their schools also receive a $2,500 donation. 

Ricardo Barber teaches third grade at Faubion, and Hang Jones serves as a social worker at Marysville Elementary. 

The OnPoint Prize for Excellence in Education celebrates educators who embrace innovative teaching techniques that ignite enthusiasm in their students. 

Congratulations to Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones! And thank you both for everything you do to make a difference in the lives our students.

The assignment their teacher gave them was simple – make a short film that begins with a phone call and ends with someone hanging up. Benson first-year students Dylan Martinez-Torres and Dariel Soriano Zamora ran it all the way to a small city populated by two very big and rather iconic monsters – Godzilla and Hedora.

The result, Sorry, Wrong Number, is one of the more than 90 films entered into the annual Best of PPS Film Festival. The festival is a celebration of exceptional student filmmaking that includes a showcase at the historic Hollywood Theatre. 

The fourth annual installment of the festival took place on May 21 and included a screening of 13 standout films. The films came from all over PPS and ran the gamut from Dylan and Dariel’s monster short to documentaries, film noir, and broadcast journalism. 

If you are a passionate student or community member that wants to make a difference at PPS, apply to join the Climate Crisis Response Committee! This is a committee that reports to the PPS Board of Education.

On the committee you will learn about how PPS is making progress towards our climate justice and sustainability policies, provide input and recommendations to the PPS Board on how to better support PPS staff as we advance these policy goals, and connect with other passionate members of our PPS community from diverse backgrounds, knowledge areas, and lived experiences.

No previous professional experience in climate change or sustainability required! Students can apply via this form. Community members can apply here.

Deadline to apply: June 6. 

Earthstock 2025 was a huge success!

Each year, special education students from across the region gather at Portland's Crystal Ballroom for a truly unique and uniquely joyful high school dance. 

Earthstock began in 1992 at the request of a young student who was confined to a wheelchair and was disappointed he couldn’t attend the high school dances because of transportation issues. There were 60 kids at the first event. Earthstock now entertains more than 700 students, staff and volunteers, and is rapidly becoming one the largest events of its kind in the country. 

Next year Arleta will have a new literacy support: an additional half-time reading support educational assistant! They will provide “high dosage tutoring” to K-2 students identified as needing additional support, 3 times per week for 30 minutes during WIN (What I Need) time. 

Yesterday was the final Early Release Wednesday of this school year. Over the year, our staff have been joining up with Vestal Elementary’s teaching staff each month, learning about literacy instruction and evidence-based best practices, and how to adjust our instructional practices based on our students’ strengths and needs. This week, our focus was supporting language development through “Socratic Seminar”, a structure for evidence-based discussion about texts. As a full group the educators from both schools analyzed the skills, knowledge and scaffolds kindergarten students are expected to demonstrate in their next Socratic Seminar, then grade level groups went through that process. Below is one (of many) highlights generated by each team. Use this to ask your child about what they’re learning during “Wit and Wisdom” (our literacy resource).

Warmly,

Lisa

On behalf of all Arleta Staff, we love our Arleta community! Thank you so much for all your thoughtfulness, generosity and care always, and for making us feel so valued this week especially. The commitment and care our families pour into our community is such a special part of Arleta, and makes such a difference in everyone’s days. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the lovely staff appreciation on all the levels.

Skimming through this week’s Dolphin Digest, my heart fills with gratitude for all the ways our community comes together for our students. Make sure to scroll down to the SSJ65 Arleta News Channel brought to us by our wonderful SUN School! Speaking of SUN School, things are looking good! The mayor's budget website talks about supporting SUN (under parks). Our district RESJ SUN Manager, Marco Matias, is hoping for a final, final decision any day.

A quick note on the classroom placement process for next year: the main thing to know is you don’t need to do anything. Our teacher teams work together to create balanced learning environments, with input from specialists and support staff. We consider academic achievement, race, age (the number of younger students vs. older students within a grade), ELD and Special Education services, learning styles, gender, students who are new to our school, and more. I assign teachers to sections over the summer, and staff finalize class lists during the days teachers are working before school for students begins. For more detail, see the Classroom Placement section in our Arleta Family Handbook.

Warmly,

Lisa

Incoming Kindergarten and Prospective Students Open House this afternoon! This afternoon, 4th and 5th grade volunteers will lead school tours or demonstrate what music, PE and Library look like with our “Specials” teachers. Thank you to our student leaders and if you see any incoming kindergartners or prospective students today, please mention our Open House! It begins at 2:30.

Ms. Raina and I are excited to bring a screening of a really wonderful math documentary called “Counted Out” to all in our community in our auditorium on Saturday, May 31, mid-day (exact time TBA soon). Please hold the date! Here’s the trailer: Counted Out. The film is so engaging and inspiring; it’s about reducing math anxiety and making math feel accessible and relevant to all students. You can invite anyone to attend with you. Free Popcorn will be served! Raina and I will host a post-discussion with snacks after in Room 4 for all interested, too.

Thank you wonderful Arleta Parents, Family and Community Volunteers! There’s a little note of appreciation for you on our office counter along with a Kind bar (Thank you for your Kindness and Generosity!) but how can words and Kind bars convey the incredible positive impact you all have on our school, in and out of classrooms? Please know it’s deeply felt in my heart, and the hearts of all our staff. The ways you support our teaching, our school grounds, our school climate and culture, each other, new families, outgoing families, the way you support and show up for important priorities when they emerge (SUN!), and the programs, events, and affinity spaces you create and support have so much to do with Arleta being the amazing school it is. I’m so grateful and constantly touched and inspired by you all, and also I learn so much from you.

On that note, an Arleta mom reminded me just yesterday of utilizing our Family-Student-School Compact when we need to work with children on following school expectations. You could keep it handy to use with your children as all work to follow expectations and keep focused on learning and playing (safely!). Every child, teacher, family and I signed it..

Reminder from our Arleta Family Handbook: SUN and YMCA use of the playground after school. YMCA and SUN School programs have Civic Use of Building (CUB) permits for our building and grounds after school. Our goal is to co-mingle our programs with students / families who like to hang out to talk and play, while also ensuring no one has come on the property who shouldn’t be there. Arleta students must have adult supervision in order to play on the school grounds after school. Students should not bring personal toys onto the school grounds after school during our SUN and YMCA programming, as other students would also need to be included, and YMCA and SUN staff need to be able to gather their students according to their program schedules. Thank you for your support!

Warmly,

Lisa

What a fun and vibrant Art & Literacy Night last week! Even if you weren’t able to attend this year, your child’s beautiful art and work is displayed and was part of the experience. It felt so good to meet and connect with each other in the shared love for our students… just being together, and also all the help. Thank you! From finding black fabric and stapling it to display boards, mounting and hanging, fantastic flyers, maps and Bingo cards, providing food, our iLumiDance performance, Maya Ceramics and author Aron Steinke, cleaning up, setting up, leading… And! Our amazing Ms. Meyer and Classroom Teachers who led students to share themselves in such beautiful, meaningful ways. Next up is SUN Bingo Night! ~Arleta Cafeteria, 5-7, Friday Night.

I’m thrilled to announce a wonderful partnership Arleta has begun with Black Excellence Group, a play-based modular program and PPS community partner. BE serves over 500 PPS students in Black Excellence cohorts each week across 9 schools, Arleta being the 9th! Our BE students meet in two cohorts (K-3 and 4-5) for 30 minutes weekly. The focus is on accelerating belonging and trajectories for children… for children to hear they belong and are loved, valued, able and excellent.

Our staff also gets to learn from our Black Excellence Leaders, and as your honored lead learner, here is a tip Mr. Matt, BE Educational Programming Lead, shared with me recently, for use when encouraging children to do something we want or need them to do: acknowledge 4 strengths before we re-direct. For example:

• You are such a good thinker, you’re clever, you ask good questions and I love how curious you are. Please use your skills to make Grandma a birthday card!

• You are ___, ___, ___, ___. Yesterday I saw you do___. Right now, what would it take to see that again?

• I see you working hard, you’re a hard working person.”

The idea is that reserving our no’s for when we need them, changes our heart position and our mindset. We feel a change in children’s response to us when we acknowledge the strengths they have. As Mr. Matt put it, we call them in instead of calling them out. Here’s a link to four helpful ways to help ourselves give this 4:1 positive reinforcement and shape the behavior we want to see. I’m so grateful for our new partnership with Black Excellence… for our Black Excellence students and for our whole community.

ICE Action Preparedness: Last week, the PPS legal team learned of letters sent out to families in the metropolitan area telling them that their parole status was being terminated and directing them to leave the U.S. immediately. Here is an FAQ on this issue. According to staff from Innovation Law Lab, the most important takeaway is- people with pending applications (like applications for asylum) are permitted to remain in the country while that application is pending. People who do not have pending applications should consult with an immigration attorney as soon as possible; Equity Corps is a great free resource for that. The phone number for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition Hotline (PIRC) is (888) 622-1510. It’s important to have: observers may be able to respond quickly to these types of situations.

Warmly,

Lisa